| Description | This collection consists of the papers of I M Marsh College of Physical Education, previously the Liverpool Gymnasium College and Liverpool Physical Training College, including: administration and governance; buildings and estates; events; student records including personal papers, examination records, awards, and photographs; staff records including papers of founder Irene Mabel Marsh; sports kit, equipment, and other memorabilia; audiovisual material; library and teaching resources; Students' Union records; records of the Association of Past Students (APS) Society, also known as the Association of Past Physical Education Students of I M Marsh College (APPESIMM); records of The Marie Crabbe Trust; publications and research on the history of I M Marsh College; and newspaper clippings.
Significant records include:
- LJMUH/IMM/1/3/3/1-6 for the official I M Marsh The Limpet magazine, 1952-1954.
- LJMUH/IMM/2/1/1 for the Ruth Morison Gymnasium Commemorative Plaque, Jun 1987.
- LJMUH/IMM/2/3 for photographs of the buildings and estates of I M Marsh College.
- LJMUH/IMM/4/1 for student personal papers. These records include individuals' photographs and albums, as well as student work, assignments, personal gymnastic equipment and garments, as well as other student and personal records for past students.
- LJMUH/IMM/4/6 for photographs of students.
- Photograph albums: LJMUH/IMM/4/1/2/2/1 by Isobel Jarvis, 1943-1946; LJMUH/IMM/4/1/4/1/1 by Patricia Margaret Dunlop, 1936-1939; LJMUH/IMM/4/1/9/1/1 by Phoebe Tuck, 1923-1925; LJMUH/IMM/4/1/11/1/1 by Joan Franks, 1948-1953; LJMUH/IMM/4/6/4/1, c.1900-1939; LJMUH/IMM/4/6/4/2, 1923; LJMUH/IMM/4/6/4/3, 1924; LJMUH/IMM/4/6/4/4, 1924; LJMUH/IMM/4/6/4/5, 1925; LJMUH/IMM/4/6/4/6, 1925; LJMUH/IMM/4/6/4/7, 1926; LJMUH/IMM/4/6/4/8, of The Shanty in Abersoch, North Wales, c.1900-1939; LJMUH/IMM/4/6/4/9 of The Shanty in Abersoch, North Wales, c.1918-1920; LJMUH/IMM/4/6/4/10, 1953; LJMUH/IMM/4/6/4/11, 1909; 1939-1965; LJMUH/IMM/4/6/4/12, c.1905-1913; LJMUH/IMM/4/6/4/13, c.1920; LJMUH/IMM/5/1/1/1/1, [likely] belonging to Irene Mabel Marsh, 1907; LJMUH/IMM/5/1/1/1/2, [likely] belonging to Irene Mabel Marsh, 1922; LJMUH/IMM/5/1/2/4/1, belonging to Maureen Short, 1962-1981.
- LJMUH/IMM/5/1/6/1/1 for a letter from Kathleen Henderson (Abersoch) to John [-] at I M Mash College, including reminisces on Irene Mabel Marsh, 11 Mar 1941.
- LJMUH/IMM/5/1 for staff personal papers, including the significant collection of garments, sports equipment, memorabilia, and photographs belonging to Maureen Short under LJMUH/IMM/5/1/2.
- LJMUH/IMM/6 for miscellaneous sports kit and garments (in addition to those found within student and staff papers mentioned above).
- LJMUH/IMM/8 for audiovisual material, including a large and unique collection of film reels of student gymnastics classroom demonstrations and student assessments from the 1950s and 1960s.
- LJMUH/IMM/11/3/1/1-83 for The Journal of the Association of Past Students of I M Marsh College, formerly the News Leaflet of the Association of Past Students for the Liverpool Physical Training College year dates 1922-1924; 1943-1951; and 1953-2023. |
| AdminHistory | The Liverpool Gymnasium College was established in 1900 as a women's sports College by Irené Mabel Marsh (1875-1938) at 110 Bedford Street near the city centre of Liverpool, although Marsh's first conceptions of establishing the College date back to 1897 - the date which appears on some of the older emblems for the College. Marsh had previously undertaken a two-year course at the Southport College of Physical Education when she was 18, after which she took a part-time teaching post in Gymnastics at Freshfield School. Due to her success as a Swimming and Gymnastics teacher, she was then asked to become Director of Bootle Gymnasium and later of Women's Classes at the Liverpool YMCA, which had then the second largest gymnasium in the world, a post which she retained until 1937 at a salary of £50 a year.
At the YMCA, under Irené Mabel Marsh, classes were also offered on Thursday evenings for working girls, and additional classes were offered to disabled students with a wide range of impairments and accommodations. These classes always ended with the pianist Mr Asplet, who was also blind, playing requested tunes. After the growing demand for her classes at the YMCA, Marsh, with some resistance from her family, established the Liverpool Gymnasium College with her first students being her sister Salome Marsh and friend Muriel Peet, later joined by Bertha Knowles, Nance Black, Amy Carpenter, Pearl Taverner, and Carrie Walford. For more information about the personal life and upbringing of Irene Mabel Marsh, please see LJMUH/IMM/13/1 for the publication 'Liverpool Physical Training College: The story of the founder Irene Mabel Marsh' by May Hilton Royle, n.d.
Early entry requirements for students stipulated that they must be 'steady and reliable... not sentimental or moody,' that 'the frivolous or lazy girl is not wanted,' and that 'she must be level-headed, tactful, and have plenty of common sense.' Students were also not permitted to be under 5'3", and needed to wear their hair tied up and not bobbed. Because the courses at I M Marsh were training them to become teachers, this was to differentiate them professionally from the fashionable haircuts belonging to the younger pupils they were teaching. Successful teachers were also deemed to be people with 'good social position,' 'essentially refined with ease of charm and manner,' and 'have no accent but a nice speaking voice' and have been educated at a high-class school. Students who were accepted were generally between 18-30 years old. The first term of study was also only considered a trial period, which students were expected to pass to continue.
Within a few years, student numbers at the Liverpool Gymnasium College had grown so much that Marsh bought a house opposite Bedford Street to accommodate 50 students, equipped with a library and lecture rooms. In 1905, Kathleen M Henderson who was previously a student 1902-1904, joined the staff and became Vice Principal. In 1907, a second and later third house on Huskisson Street were added, with playing fields in Wavertree and Calderstones several miles way, making a bicycle a necessity for early students. Hygiene and Physiology lectures were also taken at the Municipal Central Technical School (see reference LJMUH/CT for more information).
Courses took two to three years to complete leading to a College Certificate, which qualified graduates to become games mistresses. The early curriculum was highly innovative: physical education was interpreted in a very wide and, at the time, controversial way. Marsh originally followed her own systems of free movements and gymnastics until adopting the Swedish Free Movements system, in addition to the use of music with exercise, and small apparatus such as wands, dumbbells, clubs, hoops, scarbes, balls, and ropes with which students were encouraged to 'make up their own exercises in order to learn the value of creative effort' (LJMUH/IMM/13/1, p.23). Swimming was taught for many years before it became established in the national curriculum in 1919. Other College activities included hockey, lacrosse, horse riding, training for the Royal Life Saving Society, cycling, rowing, netball, cricket, tennis, badminton, tactical marching, guiding, and roller skating. Students had to cycle to the Mersey feny, cycle to Chester, row on the River Dee and return the same way. In 1917, Marsh also founded the Girl Guides Corps at the College and became District Commissioner, receiving visits from Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Scout movement.
Marsh also worked with orthopaedic surgeon Sir Robert Jones to introduce remedial classes to the early College, fitting up a room at 110 Bedford Street where patients were sent by doctors for exercise and massage treatments. Once the College had reached 171 Bedford Street, its large Medical Gymnasium required additional help and senior students with occasional visits by Jones. This included a clinic for non-paying patients treated in small classes. The Physiotherapy Department of the Stanley Hospital was also run from the College under the direction of the teacher May Hilton Royle, where students obtained experience in hospital methods, particularly during the First World War.
Teachers in this early period alongside Marsh and Henderson included Miss Mary Joyce, Dr Joyce, and Dr Foley, as well as Swedish Gymnastics teachers Mrs Golgi, Miss Jarl, and Mrs Heijne, who graduated from the Central Institute of Stockholm. Other visiting lecturers included the Russian prima ballerina Anna Pavlova who delivered masterclasses in classical ballet on several occasions. The College became a recognised centre of the English Folk Dancing Society, and was visited twice by its founder and folk song and dance revivalist, Cecil Sharpe.
The College was very social with lots of additional activities and trips. Students were regarded as members of a large 'family' and Irené Mabel Marsh was always referred to as "Mums" by her students. Marsh was also known to her great niece Sarah Green as 'Auntie Rene,' and bought a holiday home in Abersoch and built a small wooden house there which she called ‘The Shanty.’ Her family holidayed with her there, sometimes along with her students who slept in bell tents on land above The Shanty. Sarah Green remembered spending holidays there as a child and described it in a talk she gave to the Association of Past Students in 2021 as 'terribly basic' with no heating and no running water. Marsh stayed there most often with Kathleen Henderson, her 'life companion' who was known to the family as 'Aunty Kathleen.' Henderson inherited The Shanty upon Marsh's death in 1938, per Marsh's wishes. Kathleen Henderson (b. 1885 Seaforth, Lancashire, d. 29 Apr 1944) also played hockey for England and was a member of the North Selection Committee for Hockey and Lacrosse. 'Auntie Elspeth,' presumably one of Irene's sisters, bought The Shanty from Kathleen Henderson and it was owned by her until the 2010s when the property sold upon Elspeth's death for £2.5 million. The Shanty was demolished, and a modern building was developed on the site.
Marsh and Henderson were also known for wearing costumes and disguises around campus, including as former student Royle recalled, dressing up as 'two old ladies' to observe students without making them too nervous to assess properly (LJMUH/IMM/13/1, p.31). Royle also recalled Marsh, Henderson, and other good swimmers at the College dressing up and entering the swimming baths in fancy dress at the end-of-season swimming galas (p.34), as well as the Fancy Dress dances in the Medical Gymnasium which took place every other Saturday night, at which once Marsh and Henderson arrived dramatically in blackface and were decorated with items (possibly real human remains, or possibly reproductions) taken from the anatomy specimen cupboard (p.37).
In 1919, the Liverpool Gymnasium College moved to its iconic campus on Barkhill Road in Mossley Hill with about 120 students now in attendance, and was later known as the Liverpool Physical Training College (LPTC). Barkhill included a two-storey mansion with 18 acres of land looking over the Mersey and the Welsh hills, as well as two lodges which eventually became the gymnasium, and a coachman's cottage which became a home for the groundsman. At this new campus, all activities apart from rowing and horse riding were now based at one site. Additional arrangements were also made for remedial classes, including allowing students to attend clinics at the Royal Southern Hospital and Calderstones Crippled Children's Home, and veterans of WW1 coming to the College as patients for treatment. Students could also now sit for examinations of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy.
Following Marsh's death in 1938, and the absorption of the College into the Lancashire Education Authority in 1944, it was renamed again to I M Marsh College of Physical Education in 1947 and the Barkhill site became known as the I M Marsh campus. Marie Crabbe became Principal of the College, and Henderson stepped down from teaching in 1939. The College continued in Marsh's footsteps as pioneers of physical education, being the first to use the Laban approach to movement. The last member of staff which Marsh had appointed, Ruth Morison, was an exponent of this technique, and she became Deputy Principal in 1953. I M Marsh College was also the only British College to send a complete team to the Ling Centenary in Stockholm in 1949, to mark the 100th anniversary of the death of Per Henrik Ling, the founder of Swedish Gymnastics.
During the Second World War, students took on many domestic duties and ground maintenance. Some of the sports fields were turned into allotments, and air raid shelters were built. Two aerial landmines and a large bomb fell on the site but no injuries were recorded.
Crabbe and Morison had a joint retirement in 1965, at which point Margaret Jamieson was appointed as the new Principal. In 1976, F L Calder College joined the I M Marsh College campus. The campus briefly became part of the University of Liverpool, until being transferred in 1981 to the Liverpool Polytechnic as the I M Marsh Centre for Physical Education. In 1985, I M Marsh became co-educational, admitting male students for the first time. In 1992, the Liverpool Polytechnic achieved University status and was henceforth known as Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU).
A list of Principls are as follows:
Irené Mabel Marsh (Principal): 1900-1938
Kathleen M Henderson (Vice Principal): c.1905-1939
Marie Travers Crabbe (Principal): 1938-1965
Ruth Morison (Deputy Principal): 1953-1965
Margaret Jamieson (Principal): 1965-1981
To read more about the history of I M Marsh College, see:
May Hilton Royle, n.d. Liverpool Physical Training College: The story of the founder Irene Mabel Marsh (Manchester: George Falkner & Sons), available to view at LJMU SCA under ref. no. LJMUH/IMM/13/1.
Pat Shenton and Sheila Wigmore, 2022. I M Marsh College of Physical Education – Leading innovation and change in teacher education and training in the world of Physical Education, Sport, Dance, Outdoor Education Volume 2: Marie Travers Crabbe CBE 1939-1965, available to view in person at LJMU SCA under ref. no. LJMUH/IMM/13/3, or available to purchase via https://ljmualumnishop.com/product-page.asp?section=1217&pid=3876
Dr Ida M Webb [Ida Webb], 2018. Forty Plus 'one' Glorious Years (Honiton: Gill Metcalfe), available to view at LJMU SCA under ref. no. LJMUH/IMM/13/5.
Kelvin John Street, 'Female Cultures in Physical Training Colleges 1885-1918,' 1999. PhD Thesis, De Montford University.
The Journal of the Association of Past Students of I M Marsh College, formerly the News Leaflet of the Association of Past Students for the Liverpool Physical Training College. The year dates 1922-1924; 1943-1951; and 1953-2023 are available to view at LJMU Special Collections & Archives via LJMUH/IMM/11/3/1/1-83. |
| CustodialHistory | This collection was acquired through a large variety of different deposits and transfers. Some was the result of an internal transfer from the I M Marsh campus building in 2008 and subsequent years. The majority of this collection has been kindly donated by past students and staff members of I M Marsh College (and its successor I M Marsh Centre for Physical Education at the Liverpool Polytechnic and LJMU), often via the Association of Past Students committee. Within this, a significant portion was kindly donated by the late Professor Pat Shenton OBE and family members on her behalf (please see LJMUH/LJMU for Pat Shenton's papers as a staff member of Liverpool John Moores University).
If you or someone you know is interested in making a deposit to this collection, please email us at archives@ljmu.ac.uk or contact your Association of Past Students representative. |